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I thought that the OP was quite restrained, and merely sounded rueful, poorer and wiser, and was giving us a gentle warning to be aware.

If he's the lad with the bike, he's pretty good these days. He's been moving people's boats for them, also runs a boaters laundry service! Can't actually remember when I met him first, but he was just out of school and loved canals. Never asked for money but I usually tipped him. He will also give you a card with his number so you can call him if you need help. When he started, he tended to wind you up too quick, but was always willing to listen and learn, and if you said you'd rather work it yourself was happy to leave you to it and chat. Worked for a while at a yard in Stone. Really nice guy.

I tend to 'worry' more (maybe apprehensive would be a better word) on the Trent than I do on a 3000 mile trip on the Lumpy Stuff. The dangers are everywhere and 'so close' - if an engine fails at sea you can have 100s of miles to drift whilst fixing it - on the Trent you may have a 100 metres before you are over a weir and capsized. Our Rivers are not treated with the respect they deserve, and boats & crews are not always suitably prepared.

In previous discussions I've commented that spare part equivalent tables can be a bit of a lottery such that starting with a manufacturer's Part A, equates to another's X, which equates to someone else's Q, etc, and then comes back to the original manufacturer's Part B. In other words the genuine specification seems to get lost in the translation. Today I discovered another example: my starter battery alternator belt is a Mitsuboshi REMF 6415, for which I carry an equivalent spare - an AVX 13x1065. So, I come to swap it out today as a precautionary measure since its getting on a bit... and the 1065 is about 20mm too short and won't go over all the pulleys. No drama today, since I was replacing the belt before failure, but I've been carrying that "equivalent" spare for a while now and it would have been no help at all in an emergency! Be careful out there, y'all!

Have you tried the blog on Victron's Website Bob? I had a bit of an issue pairing my phone with my bluesmart charger and they were really helpful, even borrowing a phone the same as mine to see what might be going on. Go to the BMV pages and track down to the bottom - their replies are pretty quick.

A sad tale indeed. Perhaps when a Mr. S. Priest returns from The Hawthorns ( in a bad mood one suspects as the Baggies only managed a draw against bottom club Ipswich?) he can enlighten, us, them, me when Water Rambler will recommence rambling

it didn't affect my bright red cushions.

Seven pages and 154 posts - if his intent was to be an irritant, @nicknorman 's volockie really was quite good at it!

All hail the great Moomin!!!! ? His ground isolator cable thingy plugged in directly between the amp and the tele and instantly there was no feedback at all! Not so much as a nonchalant hum at any volume. So thank you everyone for your suggestions, the problem is now cured. I'm a very happy clanger. ?

Got a Whale Gulper............ Sorted

Make it 4 I thought it a ‘pretty mooring’.

Todmorden and Littleborough on the Rochdale.

Well I promised to tell you how it went after the deed was done and being a woman of my word here I am. The news is that we all survived (us and the boat)! The lift was done very professionally and (bonus) the hull survey showed no work needed! So, in glorious sunshine and newly blacked our new best friend was lowered back into the canal and off we went...thank you to everyone for your reassurance (and for the terrifying tales!)

Since when has having to be helpful to the OP being a requirement of this forum? I see you are also 'not sure'. However, I would beg to disagree. Am I the only one who to see Saltisford as a place that fits the " pretty town moorings to explore; those that are on the edge of or in town or only a short walk away'? Would you not describe the view you get from standing on the back of your boat when moored outside the office as pretty? Looking up the line of brightly coloured moored boats, bending away 'till lost to the eye. The abundant vibrance of the greens of the early summer foliage rising above the canal to the sky, framing the well tended and colourful flower beds with the tops of the boats. The manicured green lawn (Ian got a new mower this year) to the side and rear. The fragrance of new cut grass and the last of Ian's mandarin ducks quacking away in the background. In the autumn, the colours of summer are replaced by the hues of the browning leaves and the magnificent conker trees droping their prizes for the school children (go there each autumn to stock up on conkers to keep the spiders at bay). All this less than 10 mins walk from the centre of one of Englands nicest cities? Maybe you dont like Saltisford, but for a newcomer to the canal network, I think it is a place not to miss if travelling up that part of the GU. It takes you back to what you imagine the canals were like many years ago. Try it at least once. Maybe we are biased. We go there 3 or 4 times a year and are members of the Saltisford canal trust.

Ah, but they may be empty busses - 2 bus fulls leaving is a much more likely requirement!

I would have gone ballistic, you showed great restraint, he sounds like a nutter. PS are you trying to tell us that a narrowboat is "babe magnet", I don't think so. ?

Will you please understand that no electric heater is going to do any good on a narrowboat unless it is plugged in to a shore line? You just have not got the generating capacity. Sorry if my comment to your veganism was offensive, it was not intended to be, to each his own. Heck, I been accused of being subtle, that will never do. So here goes.................................. Get a solid fuel stove!!!!! Then you can burn anything to stay warm, oat packets, peelings, peanut shells............

I think that's it. I find lots of places interesting even if not exactly pretty. I'm convinced Burton on Trent is one of the most underrated towns in the country. It has some really grand buildings right in the centre though none of them are tarted up. And the mooring at shobnell fields is pretty at this time of year with lots of daffodils.

Indeed. Perhaps your opinion of events would help your argument rather than spitting the dummy out....

Now that is a strange first post

If you are unsure, ask. Lock-keepers, boatyard owners, other boaters, the older the better. I know the Thames, but was always wary on a river that I didn't know. But don't be put off, rivers are much more fun than the 'Stagnant Ditch'. Your boat will tell you that.

Breaking ice past a plastic, you will never go to heaven ?

How different to the life of our own dear queen

Repoet on Station masters ship, But not a lengthy scientific or complicated report. Arrived at the scene at 11,37am precisely. Had coffee, rolled a fag and then examined the situation. Engine had overheated badly and lost coolant. Engine I;m pretty certain has not suffered any damage as the oil has no sign of water in it, no steam from the exhaust and no exhaust pong emitting from the coolant fillers. One of two things happened to cause this overheat. Firstly I took both thermostats out and tested it in boiling water, ''No good'' so put housing back minus thermostats. Ran engine up, lovely apart from water pissistantly trickling out from below the filler cap on the thermostat housing. After a scientific examination and experimention of this unit it proved not to be filler cap seals but water leaking from the screwd thread where the short filler tube screws into the thermostat housing casting, couldn't do much about that without Barrus spares. Which happened first, either leaking water past this thread which caused a severe overheat which knackered the thermostats or the thermostat failed first causing enough overheat to destroy any sealant that was on the filler tube thread and causing that to leak. Anyway the nice Mr Station master is now on his way topping up his water now and then,''I hope'' and is going to order from Barras a new housing with threaded fill neck, two gaskets and two new thermostats, these of which he will now know how to renew. Lots of air was in the skin tank too. The End.

He is a great bloke and looks nothing at all like a hobbit... Richard

I've just pulled some data off the vrm.victron site for our Lithiums for anyone who is interested. The first plot is the first charge cycle I did - done on wednesday. Bank was 50% SoC (ish). Charged at 80A for 2 hours, then at 30A. BMV connected to the victron site at 1300hrs. Voltage in blue rises and current is steady at just under 30A to point A. The bank is now nearing full and current starts to drop to a point a B ...where the current is now 12A (which is 3% of original battery capacity - 480Ahrs). At this point I would estimate we are at 100% SoC - terminal voltage 14.03V. The charger was turned off and the volts/current dropped. At point C, the inverter was turned on so the current dropped more. It is interesting that as the voltage was rising to 14.0V, the voltage on the LA bank (dont forget it is in parallel) was approaching 14.1V which is the absorbtion voltage of the IP22 in lithium mode, to that is why the blue trace does not start shooting up. So the following day, I decided to auto terminate the charge at 13.80V as shown in graph 2. If you look at the first graph, the 13.8v point still has 30A going in and this is the same in graph 2. As the voltage on the lithiums hit 13.8v, the auto disconnect worked and isolated the bank, hence no load, hence a gradual decay to 13.4V. By looking at the area under the current curve on graph 1, you can estimate the Ahrs put in between the 13.8V point and the 14.00v point which is circa 15-20Ahrs, so that means likely 13.8V is 95% SoC. As Tom says, it is likely that this graph will change if 70-80A are going in. One point to note that the orginal capacity of the batteries was 480A but these are 2nd hand so the capacity may be less. For now I will try and set the disconnect at 13.8V and monitor the Ahrs in/out.

I thought that it was because each side (remainders and brexiteers) had been given a seperate thread to reduce the number of arguments... ?

An RE teacher I know wrote on the report of a boy who had the surname Cross - "A Cross we have to bear".

No!!! Stop it with the ideas - I've already sold 43 tickets to folk keen to watch someone cutting a 25mm square hole in 6mm thick steel with a Dremmel!

Yes, probably Dixon's Diesel Engine Maintenance with some ketchup on it....

I didn't realise that bamboo's had teeth ?

Old photos are the only thing that accurately record the world when it was black and white. Paintings were in black and white too of course, but they turned colour along with almost everything else. What with entire towns being turned round backwards, the past could be very confusing. There were shades of grey back then too, but no one is interested in them any more. Bradford on Avon turned colour quiet early on, but Bradford in Yorkshire only got colour three years ago. Jen

Find a wide bit of canal, junction, or winding hole, and get the boat at right angles to the cut with the bow pushed into the bank and slightly overhanging the bank, for purposes of ritual that's as good as out of the water, crack suitable bottle of beer over the bow (taking care not to drop any glass into the grass or cut or to damage paintwork. Various things about keeping (or burning) something with the old name, maybe a digital photo would do. and do choose a good name, "we dun it" or "we retired" spelt in a funny way just won't do. Check boat name index to confirm that name is original, or else append a number to remind everybody that your name is not original, something like Kingfisher 210 or NarrowEscape 32 ? ............Dave

Look, I said I’d do it, ok? There’s no need to keep reminding me every six months.